Use and Sustain ICT Innovations for bringing into Good Agricultural Practices
15th Sep 2014
Dr Satyaveer SinghSh Sanjay Verma
Component of Presentation
1. ICT Innovations in Agriculture2. Market Information Services3. Issues and Challenges in ICT4. Advantages in ICT5. Sustainability of ICT Innovations6. Practical Demo of Mob App 7. Integration with National Market and E-
trading8. Questions- Answers Session
ICT Initiatives in Agriculture
12 Clusters of Services - NeGP-A
4
Recent ICT Innovations in Agriculture
Agmarknet and State Agri. Mktg departments - India
E-Parwana, Soil Testing/Fertility Maps - Maharashtra
Farm Implements Delivery System, e-Jalnidhi - Odisa
Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa - Haryana
Block Level Weather Forecast - GoI
Bhuwan of ISRO with Drought MIS - ISRO
E-Krishi Kiran and Soil Fertility Maps – West Bengal
Management of Micro Irrigation - Gujarat
NeGP-A Service Components - GoI
Soil Health Cards – GoI
Mobile application for field level data capturing (Govt/NGOs/Private)
Recent ICT Innovations in AgricultureNGOs/Private Sector
E-Choupal
Digital Green partners
Distance Education -Virtual Academy by CRISAT
Internet -Equipped Village Knowledge Centers and Mobile Mediated Voice
Communication Platform by CRISAT
E-Sagu
Reuters Market Light (RML)
FrontlineSMS
Connecting Dreams Foundation (Apna Tech Tree)
DigitalGreen.org
Centre of Excellence (COE) in ICT developed various information systems which linked research, extension, farmers, and markets.
Connected village knowledge centers to the internet that gave more than 40,000 farmers in India access to new and relevant information such as on climate change adaptation, crop rotation and pest management, to help them with their farming endeavors.
Open Access Repository of ICRISAT, which grants free access to documents and publications including journal articles, theses, and other research-related activities.
• eSagu is an IT-based Personalized agro-advisory system– Personalized • Provides Personalized agro-advice to farmer’s door-
step. – Regular• Advice is provided regularly (once in a week)
– Query-less: Farmer need not ask a question– Timely: Provides the advice within 24 to 36 hours– Cost-effective: Can be made sustainable with a nominal
subscription fee– Feedback: two way communication– Powered by IT: Record keeping, availability, reliability– Scalable and can be developed on the existing
infrastructure
eSagu is a PIS for Farmers
REUTER MARKET LIGHT
FRONTLINE SMS
Apna Tech Tree- UP
Market Information ServicesMIS
Why Market Information Service ?
Market Information ServiceFollowing liberalization agriculture is no more viable
Government withdrawing from direct involvement in agricultural marketing
Demand of F & V through out the year
Purpose of MIS
• Provide current and timely unbiased price and arrival information
• Provide competitive market access to sellers and buyers• MIS reports enable to seller and buyers to take better
decisions• Bring transparency and accountability in trade• Provide prices change behavior, both in the short term
and the long term• Help in calculating marketing costs between the farmer
and the market
Using Market Information
• Farmers can make use of Market information to ……– Reduce the risk associated with marketing– Decide where to sell– Check on the prices they are getting– Decide whether or not to store– Decide whether to grow “out-of-season”– Decide whether to grow different crops
Decide Where to Sell
• Sell at farmget;• Deliver to a local assembly market;• Supply a wholesale market direct;• Sell directly to individual retailers or to a large
companies that have many retail stores or supermarket
• institutional supply (Hotel, Hostel etc)• Sell to company with whom they have an agreement
or “contract” to buy the crop;• Sell directly to urban consumers
Deciding whether or not to store
• Perishable crops have relatively little choice about when to sell
• They have only advance or delay harvest by a few days
• Government market information has to provide the basic information of all storage house and their availability, charges etc
• Warehouse receipt mechanism etc
Decide whether to grow different crops
• Information of new varieties and modern farm techniques
• Seasonal price data will give farmers a good idea of the prices they are likely to get from out-of-season production
• Out-Of-Season crops– requires high investment;– Higher production cost– Some time lower yield
Deciding whether to grow different crops
• Diversify into new crops• Take advantage of market opportunities• MIS is to have close tie-up with the research
institutes/Universities/Policymakers• Extension department on region base module
prepared to create awareness among the farmers
Market Information Sources• Possible source of information
– Government Markets (APMCs)• Are independent and thus likely to be unbiased• Offer information over several years
– Do not always reach the smaller farmers– May not be up-to-date or information may be made available too late to
be of any use– May not be very accurate– Provide little analysis
Examples of Data collected on 12th Aug 15 in the Country
Arhar (Tur) Potato Apple
Common Problems with MIS
• Pay lot of attention to collecting large quantities of information but are then very poor to making that information available to farmers
• Pay inadequate attention to the quality of the data collected
• Collect and disseminate information too infrequently• Publish market prices but do not broadcast• Broadcast information on the radio/tv but in wrong
language and at wrong time for farmers to be listening• Poor content of information, such as date, variety, qty,
price etc
Why prices change
• Overall prices depend on ……– Supply, or what people are able and prepared to
sell at a certain price
– Demand, or what people are prepared to buy at a certain price
Longer-term price fluctuations depends on………
• Supply, which is influenced by– How much is farmers planted – The weather– Farmers’ own consumption needs– Whether farmers store or not
• Demand, which is influenced by– The price– The price of competing products
• Time of the year, – There is a seasonal prices pattern for most crops, particularly
annual crops
Calculating Marketing Costs
• Preparation and packaging• Handling• Transport• Losses• Storage• Processing• Capital Costs• Fees, Commissions and unofficial payments
Cost Calculation(Example)
Sn Item Cost per Kg Purchased (Rs)
1 Purchase of tomatoes from farmers (1 Kg X 5) 5.00
2 Packaging (0.5 ÷ 10 Kg box) 0.50
3 Labour employed by wholesaler to pack, load and unload 0.20
4 Transport to wholesale market (3.00 per box ÷ 10 kg) 0.30
5 Cost en route such as road blocks 0.10
6 Market Fee (1% of the value) 0.05
7 Market Agents fee (5% of the value) 0.25
8 Total Costs 6.40
9 Quantity Sold (0.9 kg X weighted average selling price of Rs 8 per Kg)
7.20
10 Trader’s gross profit 0.80
Issues and Challenges • Illiteracy• Cost of Data Collection• Seasonality• Small size of Land holding (85% SF/MF, 2.5/2.5-5 acre)• Serious band-width issues and connectivity problems• Major power-cuts from 5 to 12 hours every day• Non Customized Service Provisions• Acute shortage of project leaders and guides who could ensure
implementation of the ICTs at the grass root levels• Customer adoption• Handle massive amount of data • MIS for existing data to bring meaningful results
Advantages of ICT
• Easy to use• Low cost of alternate delivery channels (Mobile, FM Radios,
TV, KCC, Social Media, CSCs, Internet, Web Portal etc)• Language barriers stands Removed• Replication and scalability• Provides sustainability • Customised Services• Efficiency, Accuracy, Reliability and Accountability• Storage and retrieval data (Data Warehousing)• Reduced /minimal Corruptions
Can ICT solutions for agriculture be Sustainable?
• The answer to this question is “probably”, because ICT has been viable in other areas like– Manufacturing– Financial Institutions and– Western Farmers
• Modal of Reuters Market Light (RML)• E-Choupal
Solutions• In spite of very low internet penetration in rural areas and limited availability of
broadband connectivity, significant benefits have trickled down the poor by services delivered through mobile phones and community service centers.
• New ICT devices such as tablets and smart phones will certainly create new opportunities for user friendly information tools for better agricultural advice services and inform farmers about quality inputs and market access.
• ICT play important role in Capacity Building for the leaders in this field and Online Courses in Agricultural Research Extension.
• Applications delivering agricultural commodity market prices use a variety of channels, such as radio broadcasts, SMS alerts, web portals accessed via internet and KCC via phones of any kind.
• In e-Choupal, ITC utilizes the weather forecasts developed by government agencies, commodity prices gathered from different government mandis, and expert advice from several universities.
• Group Framing, Contract Farming help in making viability of the research
Public Private Partnership• Most successful projects are therefore implemented
through partnerships where different kinds of agencies bring their skills to the table.
• Financial sustainable PPP model to replicate and expand a voice message modal across the country.
• Multidisciplinary Institutions need to develop, use and sustain ICT for linking research, extension and markets.
• To significantly scale up ‘Knowledge to the poor’ revolution, research, development and private sector organization have to work together to develop and sustain new ICT innovations.
Factors for Sustainability
• Does the implementing agency have the capacity to implement and maintain the new ICT solution?
• Is the ICT solution scalable/replicable and viable?
• To make viable/sustain the ICT solution is required to integrate existing infrastructure and bundle the services at one place
Affordable Technology
• Add solution of new technology in storing, retrieval and maintaining data – Cloud and Data warehouses
• New Technology for Capturing dynamic data (android mob applications, barcode cards, etc)
• Dissemination tools like SMS, Social Media (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsup), CSC, Mob, Radio, FMs, TV, ED, Projectors, web etc and bundle of information like crop, weather, market access etc
• Modals on Online Education Courses etc
Affordable Technological Solution of Sales and Purchase Data
Demo
Thank You